[BlindResearch] Seeking Guidance on Accessible PDF Reading and Annotation with Screen Readers

[ronak shah]

This is great, thank you so much!

On Wed, 30 Oct 2024 at 13:49, Brandon Keith Biggs <
brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
> It's just a very unique combination of cymbals I can search for and find
> quickly in word files. You can also use comments if you're good at doing
> that, but I prefer just to annotate inline.
> Thanks,
>
> Brandon Keith Biggs <http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 1:06 AM ronak shah <ronakshah.26397 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Thank you everyone, this is very helpful!
>>
>> @Brandon, you mentioned "I use *~* to designate a comment from me.".
>> Could you please explain this further? I did not completely understand the
>> use of *~*.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> BR, Ronak
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 5:04 PM Brandon Keith Biggs <
>> brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello Ronak,
>>> 1. I recommend getting an OCR tool like opening a PDF in Google Docs,
>>> then downloading it as a word file. Also, try this paper OCR tool:
>>> https://papertohtml.org/
>>> You can also ask your disability services to convert papers to word, but
>>> I prefer the above options. I personally use Kurzweil 1000 to OCR.
>>> 2. The best annotation option is with word or google docs. I use *~* to
>>> designate a comment from me. I also will put all papers into a spreadsheet,
>>> and paste interesting quotes into one column, and put my thoughts in
>>> another column. I have many other columns like bibtex citation, abstract,
>>> link to the paper, pointer, title, type, tags, etc. I have over 600 papers
>>> in my spreadsheet and run queries and searches to find the ones I'm looking
>>> for when writing a paper.
>>> Sadly, most of the mainstream research tools are inaccessible.
>>> Hope this helps.
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Brandon Keith Biggs <http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 8:31 AM ronak shah via BlindResearch <
>>> blindresearch at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear researchers,
>>>>
>>>> I hope this message finds you well.
>>>>
>>>> I am reaching out to ask for advice on two specific challenges I’m
>>>> facing while reading and annotating research papers in PDF format as part
>>>> of my PhD work. I would be truly grateful if anyone could share their
>>>> experiences or workflows on these issues.
>>>>
>>>> *1- Accessible PDF Reading:* Many of the research papers I need to
>>>> read are decades old and often difficult to access with my screen reader
>>>> (NVDA, latest version). If anyone has workflows or techniques to improve
>>>> PDF accessibility for smoother reading, I would be very interested in
>>>> learning about them.
>>>>
>>>> 2- *Annotating PDFs with Screen Readers:* I am also looking for ways
>>>> to highlight and annotate text within PDFs using NVDA, allowing these
>>>> annotations to be captured by tools like Zotero for future note-taking. Any
>>>> guidance on annotation methods that work well with screen readers would be
>>>> incredibly helpful.
>>>>
>>>> I am working on a Windows 10 university-provided machine, which limits
>>>> any significant system modifications. I would appreciate any insights or
>>>> shared practices that could help streamline my reading and note-taking
>>>> process with PDFs.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you in advance for your time and suggestions.
>>>>
>>>> Warm regards,
>>>> Ronak
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>>>
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